Schools: it’s time to plan your yearbook!

Teachers know stressful it can be put a school yearbook together. It's a really big job to obtain a lot of content in the form of copy and images from the staff, who are busy enough already.

At Delphian Books, we recommend that you make a plan and startearly.

If you've got the job of producing your school yearbook, you need to organise the people involved in writing the stories. Copy needs to be gathered from the principal, deputy principals and department heads as well as also students, for example, the Head Boy and Head Girl.

Give each of the contributors a deadline and advise the ideal amount of copy to write for their article. This will save time later, so you have enough copy for their page (or page spread or paragraph) – but not too much. You don't want to go beyond your agreed page extent and blow the budget!

Ideally, teachers will carefully select their photos, rather than just sending masses of digital files for you to sort out. The teachers know their students, so they are in the best position to recommend which photos are to be used, and to make sure the students are fairly represented in them.

Things will get busier when the professional photographer arrives to take the class and individual photos. But once you have the professional photos, the pages can be built by the designer, perhaps months before the rest of the book is built. Delphian Books is happy to begin your yearbook long before it goes to press.

And then there are smaller events, where students and staff take photos. Not everyone is a good photographer, so reminding staff about good composition and lighting really makes a difference to the photos appearing in your yearbook.

Involve the staff and students in the planning, so they can become stakeholders with a sense of ownership of the yearbook.